New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1887-04-22
THE SUPREME COURT REBUKES SLANDER

THE SUPREME COURT REBUKES SLANDER
Certain cheap demagogues, among whom
Land Commissioner Sparks is conspicuous.
have for wears sought a pinchbcck reputation
by filing the air with charges OF fraud against
officials. against lawmakers, against corpora
tons and against honest settlers. These men
90 on the theory that Republics are not only
ungrateful. but fond Of blackenlng private
character. eager 10 think the worst OF every
prominent citizen, and glad to believe that
officials elected by the people arc scoundrels
The sure road to popularity they think. Is to
lift themselves by tramping on the reputation
of everybody else. Some newspapers have
adopted this theory, fancying that decaying
popularity can be revived by much display OF
wrath on account of pretended land frauds.
II is time that this carnival OF ISLANDERS
should come to an end The Supreme Court
of the United States. by single decision just
rendered. has branded with disapproval ana
disgrace large proportion of the charges made
by Commissioner Sparks. in effect declaring
that in nearly all of the many thousand cases
in which he has disputed the titles to land. ne
has been guilty of gross wrong. Inc decision
is all the more cutting because it terminates In
favor of ttle-holders a suit of great Importance
brought long before Sparks came into Office,
and marks as scandalous and slanderous the
charges of fraud against Mr.. S. b. Elkins and
several Republican officials, which men like
Sharks have been in the habit for years OF
treating as proved beyond dispute. In decid-
ing in favor of the Maxwell land grant, the
Supreme Court declares:
The question Of fraud in the survey Is
not deserving Of much consideration we are COM
PEELED to say that we do not SEQ any satisfactory
evidence OF an attempt to commit fraud ana sim less
If its contamination As to the principal officers oil the
Government who connected with that survey
IN wit the Commissioner OF the General Land Office
and the suveyor-General of the Territory OF New
Mexico there is not tho slightest evidence that they
were governed by any fraudulent or improper motive
in their acts In regard to this survey or that they
displayed any leaning toward tho grantees III asoor
| tanning the true boundaries OF the grant
Were this the whole Of the decision just rem
dercd it would be of unusual interest, because
it emphatically stamps out a SANDER that has
been so long and industriously repeated that
| it is probable most of the citizens OF these
United States have formed vague impression
that Mr.. Elkins and the other prominent Re
publicans we're somehow guilty of fraud in the
matter of the Maxwell grant, if they had not
wickedly stolen 1.7l4,764 acres of valuable
land The court not only confirms the title to
the entire tract claimed, but holds that "There
is not the slightest evidence" of fraud in the
survey. Unhappily for Sparks and other men
who seek notoriety by attacking land titles.
the court goes much further and says:
| The respect due to patent, the presumption that
all the preceding steps required by the law have been
| observed before its issue, the immense importance
and necessity Of stability Of titles dependent upon
these official Instruments demand that tho effort 10